'32-bit technology is obsolete'

In line with its business strategy to strengthen its channels, chipmaker AMD
will be increasing its headcount to 15 and outsource another 30. And very soon
its presence will be seen in 15 cities from the present seven. Haresh Bharia,
AMD's recently-appointed national development manager to look after
distribution and channel sales for India and SAARC, tells Karma Negi of
CyberMedia News about the road ahead.

What challenges do you see as channels head of AMD?

Now we are looking at strengthening the channel structure by providing our
channels with the skill-set tools for marketing, collateral merchandise,
training-so that they are able to communicate much better with their
customers. We also have network of SIs, which does value add to each other and
thus create businesses. But as far as the SAARC countries are concerned, the
final draft would be out by early 2005. Though we have partners in Pakistan,
Bangladesh, we still don't have a structure like we have in India.

Which are your target verticals?

Apart from SMBs, we are now also concentrating on government, education,
BFSI, manufacturing, corporate, BPO and call centers.

How is your 64-bit computing strategy shaping up?

32-bit technology is obsolete now and therefore, we invested in 64-bit
computing in Athlon and Opteron, which has been doing very well in the market.
Acceptability of Athlon 64-bit is growing here and so is the Opteron on the
server platform.  

Is this a show of India's importance?

Absolutely. India, China, Latin America and Russia are the main countries
for AMD. We've not only chalked out plans here, but investments are also being
made. We are on the path to grow our team and by the end of this year, Ajay
Marathe will take over as India president for AMD.

We have launched our nine-city roadshow, where we are targeting A and B class
cities and will be appointing 1,000 more channel partners. In the next phase, to
be conducted in the next quarter, we will be targeting C and D class cities and
further add 1,000 more channel partners. This only shows how aggressive we are
becoming in India.

Your flash memory strategy in India has been bearish. Why?

In India we are really not focusing on flash memory and I do not see any
opportunity in the country as there are no manufacturers here. I also don't
foresee manufacturing catching up in India in the near future.

So what is your strength?

Innovation is our key strength and we would like to leverage on that.